Lurita Alexis Doan

Doan took over the GSA in May 2006 after a 15-year career as owner of New Technology Management Inc., a Reston-based firm that sold surveillance equipment to the federal government and others for border security and other projects. During her business career, Doan became wealthy and began cultivating close ties to the GOP. Between 1999 and 2006, she and her husband, Douglas, a former military intelligence officer and business liaison official at the Department of Homeland Security, donated nearly $226,000 to Republican campaigns and causes, Mrs. Doan is the first woman to serve as GSA's chief executive as a presidential nominee confirmed by the Senate. President George W. Bush nominated Mrs. Doan on April 6, 2006. The Senate confirmed her nomination on May 26. Most recently, Mrs. Doan served on the Presidential Search Committee to select Vassar College’s 10th president, the Steering Committee for the Women’s Majority network founded by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, and the Steering Committee for the soon-to-be-built Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Harman Center for the Arts. Mrs. Doan, a native of New Orleans, La., was, until July 2005, the president, CEO and sole owner of a surveillance company she founded in 1990. Before entering the field of computer technology, Mrs. Doan taught at several colleges in the Washington, D.C. area and in Louisiana. She grew up in the downtrodden Ninth Ward of New Orleans but went on to Vassar College and obtained an advanced degree in literature from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Mrs. Doan is actively involved in the business community through participation in many trade associations, membership in business organizations and involvement in charitable community activities.